Nahum 2:10 in 8 translations
7 distinct wordings, grouped by what each translation is trying to do. Differences from the King James text are marked below.
Early modern English
Seventeenth-century wording and sentence shape. Familiar, rhythmic, and the version most quotations you have heard are taken from.
She is empty, and void, and waste: and the heart melteth, and the knees smite together, and much pain in all loins, and the faces of them all gather blackness.
1611 / 1769 · Public domain · The Authorised Version, revised to the 1769 Blayney text. Includes the Apocrypha as printed in 1611.
Literal, word-for-word
Follows Hebrew and Greek word order and grammar closely, even where the English becomes stiff. Useful for seeing what the underlying sentence is doing.
She is empty, and void, and waste; and the heart melteth, and the knees smite together, and anguish is in all loins, and the faces of them all are waxed pale.
1901 · Public domain · The American revision of the English Revised Version. Deliberately literal, and the base text behind several later translations.
She is empty, and void, and waste; and the heart melteth, and the knees smite together, and writhing pain is in all loins, and all their faces grow pale.
1890 · Public domain · John Nelson Darby's translation, made for close study rather than public reading. Often exposes grammatical detail other versions smooth over.
She is empty, yea, emptiness and waste, And the heart hath melted, And the knees have smitten together, And great pain is in all loins, And the faces of all of them have gathered paleness.
1898 · Public domain · The most extreme word-for-word rendering here, keeping Hebrew and Greek tense and word order at the cost of natural English.
Modern English
Contemporary vocabulary and punctuation, aiming for the sentence a present-day reader would write while staying close to the source.
She is empty, void, and waste. The heart melts, the knees knock together, their bodies and faces have grown pale.
2000s · Public domain · A modern-English update of the ASV. Reads close to contemporary speech while staying in the literal tradition. Includes the Apocrypha.
These 2 editions word this verse identically.
Nineveh is empty, desolate, devastated, with faint heart and knocking knee. There is weakness in every limb, and faces grow pale.
in progress · Public domain (CC0) · A modern open-licensed translation, still being completed. Some Old Testament books are not yet available.
Simplified English
Built from a deliberately small vocabulary so the sense stays reachable for new readers and non-native speakers. Trades nuance for clarity.
Everything has been taken from her, all is gone, she has nothing more: the heart is turned to water, the knees are shaking, all are twisted in pain, and colour has gone from all faces.
1949 · Public domain · Written with roughly a thousand basic English words plus a small Bible vocabulary. The plainest reading available here.
What changes between the King James and modern wording
The modern rendering is printed below with every word that differs from the King James text marked, so the actual divergence is visible rather than left for you to spot.
She is empty, void, and waste: the heart melts, the knees knock together, their bodies and faces have grown pale.
Word-for-word swaps
- and→melts
- smite→knock
- loins→their
- blackness→have
The verses either side
King James text. A comparison is easier to judge when you can see the sentence the verse sits inside.